Extra syllables and lengthening of words

In contrast to lengthening words and making abbreviations, some speakers have made a habit of throwing in extra syllables to words. See the table below for some examples.

Notice the words in column 2 have an extra, often unnecessary syllable added to it.

1	2
preventive	preventative
oriented	orientated
interpret	interpretate

While the entries in the 2nd column have still made their way into the dictionary, it really isn't the preferred way of saying the word. I've found these over-syllabified words are often used by those who are in the marketing business and will speak them to sound more technical (I'm really tired of hearing "object orientated language"!).

Syllables and Stress, part 2

As mentioned in the previous post on stress, syllable stress can present a difficulty when learning a new language.

Is there an easy rule for determining which syllables are stressed in English? Some languages have predictable stress rules. For instance, in Polish, stress is always on the penultimate (second to the last) syllable. In English, stress and syllable accent is unpredictable. When one learns a new English word, the stress patterns that the word has must be memorized in addition to the definition of the word, rhyming with horizon.

Product naming and pronunciation

In product naming and branding, this is a blessing and a curse: Would you know the correct pronunciation of a name you haven't encountered yet? The intuitive thing to do would be to look for names that are similar to it, but even this technique can throw you for a loop.

Here's an example:
If you never saw the name Verizon before, how do you think it would be pronounced? You would probably look for a similar word. But is it more like Amazon or horizon? In both cases the stressed syllables are different! A few years ago, I've met some people that would pronounce Verizon (VER-iz-on) with the accent on the first syllable (like the first syllable in the word "very") so that it would rhyme with Amazon. You would eventually find out (through commercials or whatnot) that the proper pronunciation is (ver-EYE-zin) with the accent on the second syllable.

Stress variation and homographs

A word's meaning can vary depending on which syllable is stressed, these fall into the category of homographs. This was discussed here: homophones/homographs/homonyms.

There are also words that can be pronounced in different ways, with each of them being acceptable (different stressed syllables).

Examples:
kilometer
Caribbean
caramel

These are not considered homographs since the words have the same meaning no matter which way you say them.

Syllables and Stress, part 1

Syllables that are stressed can present another complication when trying to learn a language. Not all languages use stress like English does. In French there is no stress for individual words, although there is intonation (changing the tone of voice) when you are asking a question, which is a different topic altogether.

The rules for assigning stress in English are quite complex. Stress in English is lexical, that is, it comes with a word and usually has to be memorized. Similar words often have similar stress patterns, but this is not always true.

Words that appear to be similar can have completely different stress rules. This can really confuse people that are just learning English language.

Example

Take the following two words:
photograph
photographer

Notice that these 2 words are very similar (same root word) and will even appear in the dictionary as one entry. The stressed syllable is different in each case. For photograph, stress the 1st syllable. For photographer, the 2nd syllable is stressed. Even if you stress the wrong syllable (or stress no syllables at all), most English speakers will still know what you mean, although the word may sound a bit unusual. There are a lot of other English words like this which change their stress patterns completely even though a simple suffix (such as "-er") is added.

Depreciate or deprecate

These two words are very similar in spelling and meanings, but they are often confused with each other.

Here is a quick rundown of their definitions:

Depreciate is used to denote objects whose values have dropped in price over a period of time after you have bought them. This is often applied to houses, cars, computers, etc.

Deprecate is a term for items that should no longer be in use. Common uses are in computer software versions, in which an older version is said to be no longer supported. A related term is self-deprecating humor, which is the term for comedians who make jokes about themselves.

Notice the similarity in spelling between the two words. The latter is missing an i and has one less syllable. Most English speakers haven't encountered deprecate that much, it is usually seen in written form rather than spoken. This is probably the cause of the confusion over the words, and that is why depreciate is often used in place of either of those words.

Informal abbreviations

There are plenty of informal abbreviations, or shortenings of words out there. We don't really think about these that much in everyday life, but do you consider that they can be harmful to the English language?

Here are some examples and their meanings:

diff - as in "What's the diff?" - difference
Analysis: 1 syllable saved

refi - as in "Refi now!" - refinance
Analysis: 2 syllables saved

Notice we are dealing strictly with spoken word, not written. Abbreviations like i.e, etc., are perfectly acceptable.

These abbreviations would not be appropriate in a formal setting such as a meeting. Similar to verbification that was discuss in the previous post, these kinds of informal abbreviations demonstrate that we can get lazy over language. These abbreviations should only be used colloquially and hopefully never become actual words.